


shining lights upon the water

by salvage



Series: names of endurance, names of devotion [2]
Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: M/M, Rimming, Service Top Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier, Soft Historically Accurate Beach Vacation Fic With Distinct Lack of Beach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:00:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24798067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salvage/pseuds/salvage
Summary: By all accounts, Brighton was a pleasant and healthful seaside resort. James’s doctor had recommended he summer there, as the clean sea air and cool saltwater would do wonders for the joints that occasionally pained him still. And in addition to the restorative properties of the sea, the city boasted frequent social opportunities and creature comforts. The monarchy, of course, had had its residence there, but the sale of the Royal Pavilion to the city that very year seemed not to have abated the enthusiasm of many notable persons, as well as their gawkers and hangers-on, for the city in general and the Pavilion in particular.
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames
Series: names of endurance, names of devotion [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1779907
Comments: 22
Kudos: 77





	shining lights upon the water

**Author's Note:**

> > A seaside framed  
> in glass, and boats, those little boats with  
> sails aflutter, shining lights upon the water,  
> lights that splinter when they hit the pier.  
> 
> 
> Richard Siken, [Saying Your Names](http://youngerpoets.yupnet.org/2008/04/17/saying-your-names-crush-by-richard-siken-2004-winner)

By all accounts, Brighton was a pleasant and healthful seaside resort. James’s doctor had recommended he summer there, as the clean sea air and cool saltwater would do wonders for the joints that occasionally pained him still. And in addition to the restorative properties of the sea, the city boasted frequent social opportunities and creature comforts. The monarchy, of course, had had its residence there, but the sale of the Royal Pavilion to the city that very year seemed not to have abated the enthusiasm of many notable persons, as well as their gawkers and hangers-on, for the city in general and the Pavilion in particular. 

A friend of James Clark Ross (or, more likely, Lady Ann) had some connection to someone who had a beachside cottage in Brighton to let for no charge to the heroes of the Franklin expedition, they insisted, it would be their honor, really, to do such a favor for such fine and publicly lauded gentlemen as themselves. Francis suspected that he and James would have to entertain the cottage’s owner at some point in the future, but for now it was just an empty cottage with a cozy drawing room, a neat little garden, discreet housekeeper who tidied up and supplied meals twice a day, and more bedrooms than James and Francis would need. 

Francis decided to hate the entire county of East Sussex before they even set forth from London on the still-new London—Brighton railway. Victoria Station was crowded with holidayers, the midsummer air stiflingly close with the tight press of bodies and heavy with the scent of burning coal and hot metal. It brought to Francis’s mind the modified steam train engines fitted to _Terror_ and _Erebus_ and the inextricably linked phantom worry about the amount of coal the ships burned: for each month the lower deck was kept barely above freezing during their endless winter, a day of icebreaking was lost, if a thaw ever came. He remembered, too, the black grime that settled on everything in the boiler room, including engineer James Thompson, who had grown so emaciated under the soot dust that perpetually covered his skin that he resembled the blackened and shriveled bodies of antiquity found preserved in the peat bogs of Jutland. 

James, in contrast, seemed to be excited about everything: the fast-moving modern train car, with its plush seats and polished wood fixtures; the Italianate pillars of the two-story white-walled station house at the terminus of the line; the promenades bustling with crowds of vacationers, ladies clad in the white and yellow linens of summer; even the ridiculous Royal Pavilion with its domes and minarets and frilly Oriental arches. They had agreed to spend the majority of their time in Brighton “in cognito,” as James laughingly called it while they were packing—in civilian dress—so James even looked the part of a man on holiday: his narrowly fitted white trousers emphasized his long legs and his fashionable cutaway coat hung open to reveal a pale buff-colored waistcoat. 

“It puts me in mind of my time in India,” James explained as they strolled past the Pavilion, arm in arm.

“The Taj Mahal is a tomb, not a palace,” Francis grumbled. 

“Remind me—which of us saw it with his own eyes?” 

Francis sighed, gustily, just to hear James laugh at him; he would not have minded hearing James’s story about the Taj Mahal again, nor the one about the monkeys and the mangos, nor even the one about the cheetah aboard the _Clio_ , though Francis still wasn’t sure whether the last were even true and James had taken to telling it slightly differently every time, alternately consternating or amusing Francis depending on what mood he was in. (Henry Le Vesconte was absolutely no help at all; the one time Francis had implied to him that he suspected the cheetah tale was exaggerated, Le Vesconte told him a version so frustratingly ridiculous Francis abandoned the pursuit of the truth of the incident entirely.) 

But James did not regale him now. For all his open enthusiasm about the train and the promenade and the pavilion he was still of a more reserved and taciturn disposition than he had been before the expedition, prone to contemplative silences, less likely to fill a conversational lacuna with speech for its own sake. Or perhaps his present silence was just because he knew that Francis knew the story. Francis of course knew the story about the Taj Mahal; he was thinking, however, not of the contents of the story itself but of the way James told it, of the little smile that graced the edges of his mouth and of the elegant flourishes of his broad hands that he used to emphasize the important parts of the story. He was thinking, too, of the cadence of James’s voice, the peaks to which his lovely tenor climbed and the soft low valleys between, the low rumble of his chest that Francis could feel against his own when their bodies were pressed close. 

They walked quietly together through the gardens of the Pavilion. Pairs and small groups of amblers passed them by but no one looked too closely. Here, they were not the heroes of the miraculous Franklin Expedition, covered to lurid excess in the _Times_ and the new and wildly popular _Illustrated London News_ ; they were merely another pair of anonymous holidayers strolling slowly along the broad, meandering pathways that surrounded the Pavilion. To each side of the stone-paved paths was lush, voluminous greenery, local and imported flora planted together to create verdant walls brightly dotted with flowers of all sizes and colors. Some plants were low with shiny dark leaves, some were pale or soft-looking or spiked with green stalks that jutted up from the masses of leaves like the spires of the Pavilion, some boasting yellow or pink or pure white flowers whose silken petals furled open in the sunlight, some stout, some tall as trees and casting a mottled green-tinted shade over the path. 

In the distance the white roofline of the Pavilion jutted into the sky like sun-gilded seracs. Each time they turned a corner and it caught Francis’s eye it incited a little spike of dread within him, despite the warm summer air, despite the endless green lawns and riotously leafy shrubs, despite the scent of wet earth and flowers, despite the hum and mumble of civilization all around them. He kept his eyes firmly on the path, the flowers, and, when he thought he could chance the tenderness in his own gaze, James’s face and the soft fall of his chestnut hair limned nearly gold in the sunlight. James wore the sunlight beautifully, his whole countenance illuminated by it; that sunlight would soon burn Francis’s cheeks and the tip of his nose a pink to rival that of the brightest flowers but for now Francis would endure it: for James’s sake.

As their meandering ramble turned toward the cottage in which they were staying James’s steps seemed to quicken; Francis matched his pace, though the warmth of the sun and the mild exertion brought a slight sweat to his hairline, dampening the stiff shirt collar that covered the nape of his neck. They were careful in public, of course, it was ingrained in the both of them. Even when they had arrived at the cottage James hung his shirts and arranged his shaving kit in one bedroom and Francis his in another. But when the front door closed and the two of them were alone James immediately pressed Francis against the foyer wall, the wool of his coat sun-warmed, smelling of fresh green growth and the salt sea. 

The back of Francis’s tailored frock coat stretched worryingly taut over his shoulders as he raised his arms to embrace James and his shirt under the coat was damp with sweat, clinging to his overheated skin, but he drew James close in spite of all this, tipping his chin up so their mouths slotted together familiarly: not an urgent kiss, nor a deep one, but an expression of the affection they held back in public, a reminder that the compass of Francis’s heart would always point toward James and vice versa. 

James sighed against Francis’s mouth, his chest rising and falling where it was pressed to Francis’s, the warm exhalation of his breath skating across Francis’s clean-shaven cheek. James’s broad hands came up to cradle Francis’s face, the hollows of his palms fitting perfectly to the lines of Francis’s jaw, his fingertips sliding into Francis’s hair where it was damp from sweat behind his ears and at the nape of his neck. James made a low contented sound and its reverberation hummed through both of them as he kissed Francis again, then once more, softly and sweetly. 

“I missed that,” James said. 

“I’ve been in arm’s length of you all day,” Francis replied, but gently; he understood. 

“Yes,” James agreed. “And still are.” 

Francis raised his eyebrows. “A bit closer than that.” 

“I suspect I could convince you to get closer still.” James’s hands slid down from Francis’s jaw, palms splayed above the layers of lapel and coat and waistcoat and shirt that hid his collarbones. Then he slipped a finger behind the knot of Francis’s messily tied cravat and began tugging it loose. 

“Not a word,” Francis warned, and James looked at him innocently. 

“In this particular instance it’s easier to remove,” James replied as the silken fabric slipped free of the knot and hung, loose ends creased, to either side of Francis’s throat. “It simply confounds me that a man who quite literally built a career on tying knots is so—”

Francis kissed him to shut him up, then again because of the way James’s thin lips curved into a smile under his own, and a third time simply because he was permitted to. They shared leisurely kisses as the late afternoon sun shone butter-yellow through the slightly warped glass of the cottage’s windows, bisected by thin muntins into elongated adjacent rectangles that stretched across the floors and crept up the white walls, painting them a muted gold. The air inside the house was pleasantly cool, allowing them to crowd close together without discomfort as their kisses and the movement of their hands over one another’s bodies became urgent, more heated. 

“Take me to bed, Francis,” James murmured. 

Francis did. They shed their coats and waistcoats, James’s neatly tied cravat and Francis’s crumpled one, their sweat-damp shirts, James’s polished boots and his tight-fitting trousers. Francis looked James over once he was bare, his broad shoulders and the healthy slope of his chest, the spokes of his ribs no longer visible under the skin, the healed-again bullet wounds on his torso and upper arm plump and silvery-pink with new scar tissue. He had other scars, too, some of which Francis recognized from his stories, some from their twins on Francis’s own sailor’s skin, some from the memory of helplessly watching the old healed-white scars slowly dissolve into seeping red: the wide shallow powder burn on James’s forearm and the back of his hand that Francis had wrapped and rewrapped in dun-colored bandages, barely visible now except for the faint mottled sheen upon the skin; the trio of claw marks that attested to some marrow of truth within the cheetah story. Francis took this hand in his and he touched James’s waist, narrow still but less so than the first time Francis had touched him like this. 

James’s hands, in turn, came home to Francis’s skin, drawing him close so that Francis could feel the stiffness of James’s hardening cock against his still-clothed hip and James could feel his in return. The way James touched Francis felt revelatory even after all the months they had been together: James handled Francis’s body with the care that perhaps only Jopson had ever lavished upon Francis, and perhaps not even then, for as tenderly as Jopson had sponged sweat off Francis’s clammy forehead he had still, ultimately, been fulfilling his duty. James touched Francis because he wanted to, because (as Francis was continually shocked to discover) he found Francis somehow desirable, Francis’s unremarkable and badly used body, Francis’s stubbornness and his inability to tie cravats. James chose and continued to choose Francis, freely and of his own volition, in spite of his looks and his charm and, now, his renown. 

Too old for the exertions of youth they adjourned to the bed carefully, James splayed on his back on the soft sheets, Francis fitting his body above and around James’s lanky limbs, knees and thighs interlaced, a hand planted beside James’s slim neck so that he could lean over him to kiss him. James’s lean body arched up toward Francis, softly furred chest and the little curve of his belly. Francis was familiar with this mood of James’s: clingy and affectionate, wanting to be cared for, sweetly pliant under Francis’s hands. It was a privilege to see this vulnerable side of James and even more so to be the one to provide what he needed.

The landscapes of desire were foreign to Francis but those of work were familiar, so he set to work using the well-worn tool of his body to service James. And between James’s expressive gasps and shudders and the knowledge Francis already possessed about what James liked he was confident and adept with his body, deft as a foretopman on the ratlines. His mouth to James’s throat, the stark protruding line of one collarbone, the flat of James’s sternum; his hands to the peaks of James’s hipbones and the silken skin at the joints of his thighs. He lavished attention upon James and James writhed beneath him, hands clasping and releasing Francis’s shoulders and thick upper arms. 

When Francis took one of James’s nipples gently between his teeth, teasing it to hardness, James’s grasping hands found purchase in his hair, ruffling the short length of it at the back of Francis’s head. They stayed there as Francis moved down his body, kissing his sternum, the curve of his ribcage, and his belly, and the sweat in the creases of James’s palms caught in Francis’s hair and disarrayed it over his ears. James made soft pleading noises that Francis could feel as much as hear with the closeness of their bodies. James’s thighs were slim and pale and downed with soft, fine dark hair that prickled Francis’s sides when those thighs tightened around him. His heel slid across the bare skin of Francis’s back, catching on the waist of his trousers, perhaps intentionally, but Francis would not be waylaid. He took James’s cock into his mouth for just a moment, laving his tongue over the head as James’s thighs pressed insistently against his flanks, then moved lower still, mouthing at the soft wrinkled skin of his bollocks and the dip of his perineum, James shuddering and tensing beneath him, to the little pink furl of his hole. 

“Oh,” James breathed, when Francis licked over it; “ohhh,” again, drawn out this time, when Francis fluttered his tongue at the entrance and dipped inside. James was wonderfully eager and responsive to every touch, loosing a sweet symphony of desperate little noises that filled the still air of the room. Francis lost himself in the act: the quick teasing licks punctuated by delving thrusts; James’s gasping moans; the rhythmic clench of James’s thighs around his shoulders; James’s sweat-damp hands ruffling his hair; the heady, familiar scent of James’s body. When he brushed the pad of his thumb over the head of James’s cock James jolted beneath him, his body line-taut, cock drooling onto his flat belly. The spurt of precome slicked the movement of Francis’s hand over the hot silken length. 

James said his name, voice catching on the long vowel, into the heavy air of the room and it settled softly around the both of them where they were locked together like the checkered wooden puzzle box James had brought to their shared home several weeks previously: impossible to imagine when one saw the pieces separately but perfect and inexorable once fitted into place, whittled and sanded and polished just so to smooth one another’s jagged edges. Where they pressed together sweat sprang up on Francis’s skin—James’s thighs on his shoulders and his calves sliding over his back, and where Francis’s wide hand was splayed over the sharp line of James’s hip, holding him down—but it was the clean sweat of summer, salt-sweet like the ocean. 

Francis drew back enough to see James’s clenching hole, the skin around it glistening with saliva. With a thick finger he breached him, fucking shallowly into James’s soft tight warmth, spit-slick, easy and greedy for him. James accommodated him so beautifully, as though his body knew that Francis belonged here, pressing deeper inside him with one finger and then two, his smaller fingers and thumb splayed over the soft pale curves of James’s ass, dimpling the skin. James’s thighs flexed about Francis’s head, his heels sliding up Francis’s back. Everywhere they touched was hot and damp with sweat. 

Hitching one of James’s thighs further up his chest, Francis moved to take his cock into his mouth. He wished that he could see James like this from another perspective: the way his long-limbed body writhed so easily, joints without pain, scarred skin unbroken; the way his legs wrapped around Francis, held him against him. The precome that wetted the tip James’s cock smeared over Francis’s lips and washed bitter and familiar over his tongue, drawing saliva into his mouth that slicked the hot silken length of it when Francis swallowed it deeper and hollowed his cheeks. 

James made an achingly sweet sound, a breathy sigh that Francis immediately set himself to hearing again, working his throat and tongue, curling his fingers. He was successful though the soft sighs quickly turned to punched-out moans as Francis brought him closer to orgasm. James raised his hands above his head to press his palms against the headboard of the bed, arching his back, body taut between his own hands and Francis’s. Francis curled his fingers toward James’s prostate and pressed his thumb to James’s perineum and James came, his lean body wracked by wave after wave of orgasm. Francis swallowed his come and kept swallowing, relentlessly caressing his prostate, a second spurt of come flooding his mouth, swallowing, swallowing still. 

When Francis finally relented James collapsed bonelessly, his elegant limbs splayed in every direction as though he were a great starfish. Francis inelegantly wriggled up the bed to lie beside him and James rolled toward him to ensconce him with those slim limbs, sluggish and a little clumsy post-orgasm. James kissed him with the same laziness, despite well knowing where Francis’s mouth had been, and Francis kissed him back, savoring alike the soft slide of their tongues and the quick brief kisses James alternately pressed to his lips. 

“Would you like me to reciprocate?” James asked. 

“No,” Francis said simply. 

“Later?” Taller than Francis though he was, James still tucked his head under Francis’s chin, curling against him, and Francis held him there, feeling the flutter of each of James’s breaths against the sweat-damp skin of his chest.

“Perhaps,” Francis equivocated as they settled together like that. 

As the sun sank closer to the horizon the light in the cottage turned from butter yellow to honey golden and the air tasted almost as rich and as sweet. Tomorrow they would stroll together along the beach and then Francis would sit under an umbrella as James swam in the dreamlike, fathomlessly blue ocean, out past the little whitecaps of the gently breaking waves that lapped over the soft sand and worn-smooth stones of the shore. And all the while they would be warmed through, perhaps uncomfortably so, by the heat of summer. Francis, not so intractable as he appeared, silently revised his previous opinion of Brighton.


End file.
